Ve get to soon old

and too late schmart. If you browse Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, this one won’t be up there with Churchill or the rest of the loquacious crowd. But its rightness is hard to deny. Our redundancy is obvious. We tend to make the same mistakes over and over. Throw in a bit of greed and welcome the Nigerian spammers.

We’ve got the current silliness in the UIGEA/WTD/EU/Antiqua battles and a housing bubble. Not too different from the Internet bubble or the Human Genome Project. Like the Nigerian’s email, we always seem ready to fall for a line. It is no surprise we chase inside straights and flush draws.

We are Ace-rag players in life. When our loose-aggressive style hits, we prosper at the expense of the more ‘rational’ or whatever. It is the American way. The turn of last century robber barons are alive and well in our new century. And the trickle down lets the rest of us prosper.

It is interesting that it is our government and religious groups are the ones opposing our gambling penchant. The government – when it works – promotes the gamble. We say entrepreneur or other words that connote goodness instead of gamblers. We believe in God which suspends certain reality. Faith is just another form of gambling.

As we run toward the next boom or bust cycle, we do it from a pretty comfortable position. The booms have been bigger than the busts for 70-80 years. It gives us that false security we have at the tables or buying a biotechnology stock for our portfolio. We might lose or win a bit from that – well and good. But, in the real world we’ve ignored bankroll management for those intervening years. When we have some success we ignore the threat of a big looser. Visit various blogs and you’ll see that play out time after time at the poker tables. Variance? Or is it reality?

The term “Golden Age” stems from the Greeks. It is a time of Utopian ideals. And, that invariably crumbles. Whether it is Mongols, Goths or Muslim extremists, there are always those seeking to bring down another’s views in favor of theirs. Much of our world seems in a Golden Age. Like the New Age economist of the late 90’s, we keep seeing a primary change intended to prevent the cycling. Is our nanny government and willingness to legislate changes to basic human nature going to solve that cycling or contribute to its approach?

The fact is we aren’t playing within our bankroll. We haven’t for a long time. As long as we can maintain the heater, we’re in good shape. If we (developed nations) run cold, it could lead to a second dark age.

Poker and life operate on incomplete information. We make our read. In poker we are often wrong. Luckily, we are faced with fewer reads in life. And, few lead to blowing our roll. Yet that potential is there – individually and collectively.

It is not a time to suspend reality; not at the poker tables; and not in the world we view.

ADDENDUM:

Marginbet Limited, through its subsidiary, Portlandbet Pty, Ltd., operates in the sports betting market primarily in Australia. The company engages in the fixed odds Internet and telephone sports betting business through its Web site portlandbet.com and over the telephone on a range of sports and racing events. Its events include athletics, Australian football league, baseball, basketball, boxing, cricket, cycling, football, golf, ice hockey, motor racing, net ball, elections, rugby league and union, snooker, surfing, tennis, horse racing, and swimming. The company was incorporated in 2005 as Portland International Limited and changed its name to Marginbet Limited in April 2007. Marginbet Limited is based in Lyneham, Australia. SOURCE: BUSINESS WEEK

They did an IPO a while back and raised some money. They are going to return to the market to raise more. But, the reason is unique and may only make sense in that other OZ:
John Levy, Chairman of Marginbet, says, “Average margins from sports bet clients have been significantly below projections.”

This is leading the board to explore other opportunities in the resource sector.

As a result, Marginbet has entered into an agreement with Cazaly Resources Limited to investment in a drilling project in north-western Australia in search of gold.

I REST MY CASE.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 9:38 am and is filed under Journal, Misc.. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.